A Turkish beauty in sheer semi-transparent veil and traditional costume. The true historical nature of the Turkish/Eastern/Ottoman Harem was the housing of the women (and attendant eunuchs), of the Imperial or noble household, in a usually polygamous household. These quarters were enclosed and forbidden to men. The institution of the harem exerted a certain fascination on the European imagination, especially during the Age of Romanticism/Orientalism due in part to the writings of the adventurer